George Jahchan

Interview with George Jahchan

Email interview held on 30th September 2017 – as follows between Alan Radley (questioner) and George Jahchan (relator):

What are your thoughts on the current state of cybersecurity, both for organizations and for consumers?

1) Unless applicable industry-accepted best practices are effectively implemented, monitored, and detected anomalies are promptly acted upon, the war is lost in advance.

What – in your estimation – are the reasons behind the many computer security breaches/failures that we see today?

2) Human failure to adequately secure the environment, or human error (being taken for a phishing ride or falling for social engineering tricks). There is no such a technology as an idiot-proof human firewall.

Where do you go to find your “science” of cybersecurity?

3) NIST, SANS, CIS, and some creative vendors.

Do you recommend a particular cybersecurity blog that our readers could follow?

What keeps you up at night in the context of the cyber environment that the world finds itself in?

5) Being suddenly targeted by an attack using a damaging cocktail of 0-day exploits initiated by nation state actors.

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Thank you kindly George Jahchan for taking the time out of what must be a busy schedule to answer our questions in such a purposeful way.

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Interviewee: George Jahchan,

Partner & PCI QSA at Krypton Security.

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George Jahchan – Biography

Partner & PCI QSA at Krypton Security. Contact George for quality professional assistance with PCI DSS compliance projects or SIEM initiatives. He is flexible and available on short notice for short-term InfoSec contract work. Contact George on LinkedIn here.

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A VIRTUAL COMMUNITY OF CYBERSECURITY PRACTICE

Founding, building, and nurturing a Cybersecurity Science for everyone. We are a one-stop-shop for learning from—and contributing to—the latest findings and new scientific thinking emerging from the computer security community.

We extend a warm welcome to you, and an open invitation to get involved; no matter what your expertise level; and do contribute ideas, thoughts and experiences for the benefit of all.

SCIENCE OF CYBERSECURITY FRAMEWORK

In order to establish a logically coherent statement of basic theory, and to enable orderly progression of the same; we hereby define the Science Of Cybersecurity Framework (SCF).

Whereby, the SCF comprises all of the fundamental Cybersecurity axioms, principles, concepts, events and processes etc. The upshot is a complete characterisation of the entire subject matter of Information Security.

The purpose of the SCF is not to list, in an exhaustive fashion, every possible instance of a Cybersecurity failure/vulnerability and/or protective measure; but rather to define all of the logical elements that could possibly comprise the same. In other words, the SCF seeks to identify all of the universals of Cybersecurity, in the belief that any particulars will naturally follow.

WE NEED YOU!

Obviously development of a new science—is not the job of one person alone; but rather science can only arise, evolve and progress through consensus; and by the power of multiple brains.

Consequently, we invite members of the Cybersecurity community to get involved and contribute to this effort.

The Science of Cybersecurity – by Alan Radley (2017). Free digital edition is here, and the printed edition is on Amazon here.

Sample Reviews

Excellent read! Succinct and accurate on a subject that normally wanders into tangential discussions confusing and diffusing the goal… Radley breaks down today’s hottest topic in a way that provides reference to students as well as guidance to the more learned… I found it spot on and a fine addition to the body of work on cyber-security but specifically to the discussion of privacy within communications… I see this as a reference document for students studying cyber security as well as an excellent read for CTOs, CSOs, CISOs, and CEOs laboring over how to analyze their needs for increased security… allows you to hit the highlights or dive deeper into the subject with your many charts, diagrams, and glossary of terms.

Will no doubt be recognized as one of the seminal works on security, establishing definitions and clarity where others have dealt with assumptions… it is not very often that one is exposed to a work that is truly ground breaking in a field, but this is one of those works. Rather than expounding on the implementation of security as many do, Dr. Alan Radley astutely asks (and then suggests an answer for) the rather naive, yet deceptively complex question “What is security?”, or more precisely “How does one characterize a communication system for secure data transfer?” As Dr. Radley examines this question, the reader becomes aware that the answer is much more elusive than one first assumes.

As Dr. Radley builds a working compendium of definitions needed to examine the issue, the reader becomes more and more aware that the current vernacular is insufficient for discussing secure communication at a philosophical level, and if we cannot agree on what it means to be secure or private in thought, how can we accomplish it in act? It is here, laying the foundation of formal definition of socially secure communication, that Dr. Radley’s work is groundbreaking and will no doubt be referenced by many works to come.

As cyber education evolves to meet the pace of change in our digital world so does the need for good reference books.. a timely and spot on publication that I shall be recommending to my students; well done Dr Radley.

Professor Richard Benham – National Cyber Skills Centre, UK.

An excellent read and would definitely recommend this to our AISA members as a way to get a different perspective on security.

In a world full of privacy breaches, Radley timely develops a framework that delves into complexity of technical and human-centric factors that affect our perception of privacy and cybersecurity. I recommend this book to everyone who is interested in making our cyber world more secure.

Vitali Kremez (6/2/2016) – CyberCrime Investigative Analyst.

The book provides the reader with an accurate and objective view of the life-cycle of the exposures and vulnerabilities which are associated with the technological shadow cast over all individuals, and organisations. This is a unique piece of work… an excellent read, and deserves a place on every security professional’s bookshelf who is seeking a balanced and objective view of the current, and futuristic Cyber Security Landscape.

Professor John Walker – Nottingham Trent University.

Alan Radley makes sense of the complexities which ordinarily restrict this topic to IT people only… required reading for anyone focused on secure and private communication… What’s more, Alan’s no-nonsense approach and fearless honesty, is refreshing. I recommend this to those interested in making certain that their communication is more private, secure and resilient.

Bill Montgomery – CEO – Connect In Private.

A brilliant book! Did it make me wiser? Yes…

Pantazis Kourtis – Member of the Board of Directors at London Chapter at ISACA.

I commend this book to a wide readership. Well done Sir, more please.

Tony Collings OBE -Chairman – The ECA Group.

A very concise body of work, that belies its length for the practical application of useful data in a highly complex area… should be required reading for anyone providing third party services whereby their security claims cannot be held up without transparency. Ignore this work at your peril.

Christian Rogan – Vice President, Royal Holloway Enterprise Centre.

I highly recommend this book for individuals interested in understanding the challenges facing the security and information assurance specialist. Dr. Radley’s direct approach provides an excellent read and can enable valuable insights into an extremely complex topic such as security.

What Kind Of A Science Is Cybersecurity?

Cybersecurity is impossible to develop as a logical subject of study—without first establishing an observational science that identifies what we are dealing with in the first place.

Ergo, we become able to know what kinds of phenomena to look for, measure, model and control. Thus we define a set of Absolute Security metrics—and accordingly fully prescribe the various classes/types of Cybersecurity vulnerabilities—plus evolve truly effective countermeasures… >>

Avoid Hacking And data-Breaches With KeyMail

‘Cloud’ copies are highly vulnerable to hacking; largely because they will be around for a very long time—possibly forever—and as a result may be subject to innumerable future hacking attacks.

For Absolute Security in interpersonal communications, the KeyMail file-transfer protocol eliminates ‘cloud’ copies altogether; whereby client data transfers directly between devices. We call this Single-Copy-Send—and the upshot is that there are no vulnerable ‘third-party’ copies to attack, and hence no hacking risks… >>